129. What are the 3 essential elements of a beautiful brand?
Are you overwhelmed by the possibilities of branding? 💻 Fear not because this episode is all about the basics! Brand Therapy hosts Phil and Lauren break down the three essential elements that make or break a beautiful brand. (Spoiler alert: Logos aren't in their top three!) Whether you're building from scratch or looking for a change, this informative episode will give you the tools and steps to design a gorgeous and simple brand.
Episode transcription
Phil
Hello, hello, hello, happy day to you. Welcome to Brand Therapy. I'm Phil.
Lauren
And I'm Lauren.
Phil
And this is the podcast where we help you position, build and promote your brand. Those are the three stages that we typically tackle pretty much everything that falls under this umbrella of personal branding. Sometimes it's social media, sometimes it's building a visual brand, content strategy. Sometimes it's SEO, ads. I mean, we really, we try to get specific with our brand and saying that we mostly help people in sometimes companies. But the joy of this job and the joy of this podcast and the joy of what we get to do every day, really is in the variety of all the different things that we tackle. Would you not agree with that Lauren Moore?
Lauren
Totally. And per today's episode, we are going back to basics. Phil and I, we love a good luxurious brand, with many detailed elements and intricate brand boards. But we're not even going there in this episode. We are going to be talking about the essential elements of an effective brand.
Phil
Can I challenge you right now that I think because this topic of what we tackle often can feel overwhelming, and we can talk about it for half an hour. I'm going to challenge you. We didn't talk about this, I'm going to challenge you. I think we should try and make this episode 10 minutes max, so that people can live less than the normal length of our episodes. Because not just because it's Friday and I want to go drink an aperol spritz, that's part of it, but mostly because how nice would it be to have a short, actionable podcast episode focused on three, just three, only three actionable things that are most important for someone's brand?
Lauren
Do you want me to chime in?
Phil
Yes, you go first with item number one.
Lauren
Colors.
Phil
If you care to elaborate,
Lauren
I think colors are an incredible way to establish mood, credibility and wherewithal when it comes to your brand. It's kind of like with interior design. If you walk into a room that's all gray's for example, it sets a mood of kind of modern, a little distant, potentially sterile. Sometimes you want to communicate that. But other times if you were to walk into a room that's has a lot of deep colors, and a lot of vibrancy to it. Maybe it was spontaneous, colorful sofa. That's a completely different feeling. So I think that colors similar to interior design can be an awesome way to create an experience of your brand online and really communicate what the personality of your brand is.
Phil
Love that. I'm also a big fan of breaking rules. Color rules or color psychology and has a time and a place I get it. But in branding, I don't think it does. There's an argument to be made on the other side of this, that actually by breaking the rules, people are going to take more notice of what you're doing. I've often given the example you know, maybe I'd never brand a dentist with beige. Until one day we branded a dentist with beige. I used to give that example of something I would probably never do, right like teeth, white teeth, brown, beige, probably not the best color for a brand. Yet, go to our website and look at Belleville Dental Care, and it's one of the most beautiful brands that we've designed in a decade. And it is kind of beige, kind of a rose bronzy kind of an in between brownie beige type color. But it looks amazing. And that's just an example of how you can break the rules. Don't follow the rules. You don't need a brand with orange and brown because it makes people hungry. That's stupid.
Lauren
Yes, that's true. It's completely true. I also think that well, this won't be on our website yet, but it will be soon. We're working with an interior design firm Michele Plachter Design and we chose some very unexpected colors for this brands. Usually with any type of agency or firm where your work is showing like your portfolio is showing your work, a lot of times people want to kind of take the backseat when it comes to the colors of their brand. They feel more comfortable with white or a soft gray and really neutral palettes, so that way their work can stand out and shine. And while tactically that makes sense, it's also a bit of a disservice to the personality of your company. So with Michele we've got this gorgeous deep turquoise color is kind of unexpected all of and then this chartreuse color, which is a very cool tone versus the warm tones. It is a very interesting and unexpected combination for any brand, let alone an interior design company. But I would argue that it actually shows how capable and daring they are as a firm because they're doing what's completely unexpected in the form of their brand.
Phil
Yes. Apologies to the listener. We don't have that brand ready on our website yet, but it will be soon. So stay tuned for that. Stay tuned. Stay tuned. Let's move on to important item number two for a visual brand.
Lauren
Typography.
Phil
Ooh, typography. Yeah, over a logo, we might argue, I would argue that, why would you say that typography is more important.
Lauren
Again, typography is a very, very simple and quick way to establish the credibility and professionalism of your brand, and also hammer home the personality. A logo is great. I love a good logo. Mark, I think it's really important for a brand to consider a logo, but I don't think it's the most essential thing. I think good typography can actually make your brand, go to a new level in far more ways than a logo ever could.
Phil
You want to know the best example of this that I can think of?
Lauren
What?
Phil
Us, Phil Pallen brand, which by the way has evolved over the years. But the version of the logo that I'm using now is strongly inspired by the typography, in which my logo, my name is written to the point where there are slight modifications, just to remind you that I'm a sophisticated guy. On the P's, here we go. But honestly, you could let's say you're starting out and you haven't landed on this, you know, really intricate, beautifully designed logo by Phil Pallen Collective, start out with a great typography. Use some parameters to find good typography that's not going to cost you an arm and a leg in licensing those parameters would be, fonts, typography available. If you're using a website platform, like Squarespace and you are open to Adobe fonts previously called typekit, those are included and accessible if you have an Adobe subscription. And using Squarespace as well, Google fonts are free, and there are absolutely beautiful Google fonts. In fact, us, right, this is what we do for a living. We use those parameters for our clients so that they have no limitations or need to license expensive typography to use within their brand. So there are some tips if you are not sure where to start to find good typography for your brand, narrow down the options of selection by limiting yourself to Google fonts, and typekit. Or maybe a combination of the two.
Lauren
Great, so Phil, what is the third essential element?
Phil
Okay, we've talked about color, we’ve talked about typography. What's the third one photography?
Lauren
Yes, it is. If you have crappy photos, you will have a crappy brand. There. I said it.
Phil
Photography is the most important part of branding. In fact, I think it should we're leaving it last to emphasize that it's actually number one, it should come first. Because think of it this way, people are interacting with your brand online. That piece of whatever they're interacting with is like a little soldier a little substitute that's out there fighting for you on your behalf, on your inpersoness’ behalf. That got a little confusing, but it's true, right? Think about all of the interactions you haven't realized, with people face to face. We hear what you say, content. We listen to how you say it, personality. Photography is the closest way to recreate that experience online. And that's why we say it's the most important.
Lauren
So how would you recommend someone finds a photographer Phil?
Phil
So we've talked about this before, but let's hash it out.in a few quick, little tips. We love lifestyle photographers, we do not love headshot photographers, you don't need headshots unless you want to be boring online. We also love wedding photographers, wedding photographers work well under pressure and they work well with natural light. So I'd say lifestyle, editorial, wedding photographers, take those keywords and pair them with whatever city you are in the world. And that's going to be a great place to start to find someone that might be good. Ideally, you choose someone who's done something similar before. Photographers are hired based on the confidence you feel that that creative can deliver for you what they've done for someone else. So keep that in mind as you look through lots of amazing options.
Lauren
Yes, and flytographer is a really awesome resource. As well.
Phil
I love Flytographer. Let's give them a little plug Flytographer I've used many times 18 times for myself to be exact. It is a service that allows you to hire a travel photographer, somewhere around the world. They've got all the major travel cities covered, and then some. They charge a very reasonable amount of money to essentially get with a photographer in that city. I love that the pricing is standardized. So it doesn't matter if you're in expensive Stockholm, or you're in affordable, Bogota, you know, it's totally standardized. It's awesome. And they also offer for personal branding a new kind of vertical of their business is allowing you a little more range in licensing for using the photos for your own personal brand, etc.
So definitely check them out, make sure you choose the right package, and they didn't even pay us to talk about them. But I loved them so much. Nicole, the CEO is a great friend of mine, that I just wanted to bring them up anyways.
Lauren
Fantastic.
Phil
I think we should end there. We said we keep it around 10 minutes. We're already slightly over color, typography, photography, building your visual brand, please focus on those three things and no other distractions. Let us know what you thought about this episode. Speedy In fact, I'm @philpallen on social media.
Lauren
I'm @thelaurenmoore
Phil
On social media, #brandtherapy to continue the conversation. It's Friday. Can you tell we're getting a little anxious. I hope you have an amazing day wherever you are. And we'll see you back here for another episode very soon on Brand Therapy.
Lauren
Bye bye.
